The big bay, clad in broad-banded harness, soft with oil and glittering
with brasses, was shambling indolently down the hill, resisting her own
momentum by the diagonal motion the old man had likened to a dog's
sidewise trot. The looped trace-chains were jingling a merry dithyramb,
her head was nodding, her tail swaying, and Seffy, propped by his elbow
on her broad back, one leg swung between the hames, the other keeping
time on her ribs, was singing:
"'I want to be an angel
And with the angels stand,
A crown upon my forehead
A harp within my hand--'"
His adoring father chuckled. "I wonder what for kind of anchel he'd
make, anyhow? And Betz--they'll have to go together. Say, I wonder if it
_is_ horse-anchels?"
No one knew; no one offered a suggestion.
"Well, it ought to be. Say--he ken perform circus wiss ol' Betz!"
They expressed their polite surprise at this for perhaps the hundredth
time.
"Yas--they have a kind of circus-ring in the barnyard. He stands on one
foot, then on another, and on his hands wiss his feet kicking, and then
he says words--like hokey-pokey--and Betz she kicks up behind and throws
him off in the dung and we all laugh--happy efer after--Betz most of
all!"
After the applause he said:
"I guess I'd better wake 'em up! What you sink?"
They one and all thought he had.
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